Spare wheel kit - advice needed please!

[MrsDiesel]

Morning all,

I ordered a 14” steel wheel with all the foam, jack, brace etc kit, and it arrived the other day for my 1.0 Titanium (16” alloys”).

Hubby put it in the boot this morning before he drive off to work and it all fits in fine OTHER THAN the retaining bolt which he says “is too big to fit in the wheel centre hole” and so “the thread won’t reach down to the boot floor to secure it”. 

Is he being really dense, is the kit wrong, or some other issue? Grateful for help please!

[unofix]

Is the wheel upside down ?

[MrsDiesel]

He put the foam kit in first, then the wheel on top with the side that would face the road uppermost 

[unofix]

Are you talking about your 2016 Kuga ?

On all the cars I've seen the wheel normally goes in first with the foam on top. There are of course many different kits so I'm not say what you are doing is wrong.

[unofix]

Kuga manual - Look under the section "Wheels and Tires - Changing a Road Wheel"

https://www.fordservicecontent.com/Ford_Content/vdirsnet/OwnerManual/Home/Content?variantid=3731&languageCode=en&countryCode=USA&Uid=G1562655&ProcUid=G1562656&userMarket=gbr&div=f&vFilteringEnabled=False

[RMurphy195]

I'm told the Kuga and Focus 4 share the same chassis/floorpan.

My Focus' manual says that when changing the wheel, you put the full-sized alloy back into the boot face down. But you cannot - the spigot hole in the middle of the wheel is smaller than the rectangular mounting bit at the bottom of the wheel well!

So what I did with mine when I installed a full-sized spare was have it face-up, and extended the hold-down bolt. Details in the topic "MK4 - Putting wheel in boot"

[MrsDiesel]

Sorry I thought I had posted this in the fiesta section…it’s a 2014 1.0 titanium fiesta.

I better update my profile (we only got it as a Kuga stablemate at the weekend!)

[MrsDiesel]

There, all changed. Sorry for the confusion! Thanks for your helpful posts though. Interested to see how the spare wheel situation differs for the Fiesta.

[Eric Bloodaxe]

On the Fiesta spare goes in with the outer face towards the floor, so that way round your retaining boot should fit ok. Foam insert/tool kit then fits inside the dish of the wheel.

[MrsDiesel]

1 hour ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

On the Fiesta spare goes in with the outer face towards the floor, so that way round your retaining boot should fit ok. Foam insert/tool kit then fits inside the dish of the wheel.

Not like this then 🤦🏻‍♀️

[MrsDiesel]

Hang on though…if you imagine the wheel is there, not sure that retaining bolt is much use?

[Guest]

I'm under the impression t hat the wheel is to go face down in the trunk, then the foam isolation pad with the tools goes on top/inside the wheel. But I'm getting mixed images when searching online. Some model show the wheel/rim on top while others show the padding on top. 

[Jonro2009]

3 hours ago, MrsDiesel said:

Not like this then 🤦🏻‍♀️

Flip the wheel round

2 hours ago, MrsDiesel said:

Hang on though…if you imagine the wheel is there, not sure that retaining bolt is much use?

Then insert the foam inside the wheel and the retainer bolt should be long enough then. 

[Eric Bloodaxe]

Apologies, I got my earlier post the wrong way round! On my current car (Mk 8 of course) the wheel is outer side (with tyre valve) uppermost, but the foam/tools do sit in the dish of the wheel.

This is with a factory supplied spacesaver wheel. 

Some of the spare wheel kits available may have wheels of differing degrees of inset so the depth of the dish may differ.

It may well be that in the case of the wheel in Clare's pic, it may fit better with the outer face of the wheel towards the boot floor, secured by the bolt, then the foam/tools sit on top.

The retaining boot does not usually go through the tool kit, which normally just sits loose on top, in the dish of the wheel.

 

[MrsDiesel]

Thanks everyone!

[StephenFord]

2 hours ago, MrsDiesel said:

Thanks everyone!

So, is hubbie still dense then, or have you forgiven him?  🤣

[Eric Bloodaxe]

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

So, is hubbie still dense then, or have you forgiven him?  🤣

In fairness, not always easy to work out/remember which way up the wheel goes (see my second post above where I couldn't remember how mine was - it's my Mrs's car that's the other way round!)

They do seem to differ though, as I mentioned, between the factory fit spacesaver and the stuff you see on eBay or find used, so it might need a bit of experimentation to work out best fit on a particular car that came without a spare as standard.